What's Bugging You: This story has legs

When I punted a photo of a long black "bug" with yellow spots and legs to the naturalists at bugguide.net, it came back as a millipede that emits cyanide gas when threatened. How cool is that?

Wendall Waters wwaters@wickedlocal.com @ttranscript

I was stumped. Again. When my Vermont friend Cal Workman sent me a photo of a long black bug (and I use the term loosely here) with bright yellow spots on its back and many similarly-colored legs, I punted it over to the naturalists at bugguide.net.

It came back as a flat-backed millipede that emits cyanide gas when threatened. How cool is that?

Cal has a high-energy pit bull dog, Archie, and every morning they take a long walk in the woods. She comes across all kinds of neat things, and she sends me photos of them with the query, “friend or enemy?”

There are a number of millipedes that emit cyanide when threatened, but it isn’t enough to hurt a person. Some say it might sting a little bit, so just don't pick them up. It probably makes life miserable for some would-be predators but, obviously, some things will eat these millipedes.

On ScienceBlogs.com/TetrapodZoology, a British man talked about discovering that some birds will eat millipedes despite their toxicity. A man who had lived in the Congo for a time replied that while most of his chickens didn’t eat millipedes, once in a while he’d have one who ate them regularly. To which another person replied, “Did anyone dare to eat such a chicken?”

All kidding aside, you don’t have anything to worry about with millipedes.

You also don’t need to fear their cousins, the centipedes, at least in New England. Here, there are some centipedes that might give a little bite. When I was in southern Arizona, I had a near run-in with a giant desert centipede, which can really hurt you.

My friends and I were sitting in our store when one crawled in the door, went right by us and proceeded into the kitchen. It was probably a foot long and as wide as my thumb. I was mesmerized, and I wanted to take photos, but I knew my friends would have none of that. So, unfortunately, the poor thing was dispatched pretty quickly.

But, I occasionally found the smaller, less dangerous desert centipedes in the house. I'd catch them with a peanut butter jar and a piece of paper, take some photos, and then put them outside.

If you can get past the ick factor, these critters are actually quite beautiful.